Samson

I was thinking about Samson today and the strength he had, probably the strongest person that ever lived.  What do you think about when you hear the name Samson?  You may think of a man of great strength or maybe a man’s man, if you know what I mean.  Maybe you might think of the fact that he was   born a Nazarite from birth, set apart for God’s service.  He was born at a time when the children of Israel were in the Philistines hands for many years.  Samson did some very heroic things but where did his strength come from?  His strength came from the Spirit of the Lord.

It says this through the angel of the Lord to Zerubbabel in Zechariah 4:6, “Then he answered and spake unto me, saying, This is the word of the Lord unto Zerubbabel, saying, Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.”

This reminds me of the days when I pumped iron, I was very strong for someone that didn’t take steroids and I know that there are many pumping iron today and some are very, very strong, much stronger than I was but we are going to find out that it takes more than brute strength to honor the Lord.  

Now let’s get back to Samson, He was probably the strongest man that lived and he was known for his abilities in the strength department, but he had weaknesses also.  We may be strong in certain areas but very weak in others; this is the case with many others, including myself and Samson.  One of his weaknesses was a woman named Delilah, a Philistine.  If Samson would have only used the gifts that God gave him to honor God things would have worked out much differently in his life, but he chose to take things into his own hands and he broke God’s laws and his vows on more than one occasion, and when we do that we run into many difficulties and Samson was no exception.  It was against God’s law for Samson to marry a Philistine.

Read Exodus 34:15-17, “Lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and they go a whoring after their gods, and do sacrifice unto their gods, and one call thee, and thou eat of his sacrifice; and thou take of their daughters unto thy sons, and their daughters go a whoring after their gods, and make thy sons go a whoring after their gods. Thou shalt make thee no molten gods.”

And Deuteronomy 7:1-4, “When the Lord thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and hath cast out many nations before thee, the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than thou; and when the Lord thy God shall deliver them before thee; thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor shew mercy unto them: neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son. For they will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods: so will the anger of the Lord be kindled against you, and destroy thee suddenly.”

A marriage to a Philistine woman would have disgraced Samson’s family and brought on them great shame!!  Samson was born to start the deliverance of the Israelites from the Philistines, not to marry one.  This shows that not everything that a person does or the choices they make, even a person who has the Lord’s presence in their life, are always the Lord’s will for that person because a person always has a free will to choose.  Samson’s choices cost him dearly and so do ours at times when we make the wrong choices.  In the end Samson was done in, because of his selfish desires.  He made a big mistake telling Delilah the secret to his strength.  The Philistines took him and put out his eyes and took him to Gaza and bound him with fetters of brass and he did grind in the prison house, for the Lord had left him and he didn’t even know it.

How sad this must have been for Samson, his life and story could have been so different if he would have just made the right choices.  All of us will reap the consequences of our choices, but praise the Lord, when we truly repent we will also be forgiven.  In the end Samson repented and God used him once again.

Read Judges 16:26-31, “And Samson said unto the lad that held him by the hand, Suffer me that I may feel the pillars whereupon the house standeth, that I may lean upon them. Now the house was full of men and women; and all the lords of the Philistines were there; and there were upon the roof about three thousand men and women, that beheld while Samson made sport. And Samson called unto the Lord, and said, O Lord God, remember me, I pray thee, and strengthen me, I pray thee, only this once, O God, that I may be at once avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes. And Samson took hold of the two middle pillars upon which the house stood, and on which it was borne up, of the one with his right hand, and of the other with his left. And Samson said, Let me die with the Philistines. And he bowed himself with all his might; and the house fell upon the lords, and upon all the people that were therein. So the dead which he slew at his death were more than they which he slew in his life. Then his brethren and all the house of his father came down, and took him, and brought him up, and buried him between Zorah and Eshtaol in the buryingplace of Manoah his father. And he judged Israel twenty years.”

I have given you something to think about and I hope it has been an encouragement and a help to you.  May the good Lord bless you and yours and may you all have a super day!!  Don’t forget to thank and praise the Lord for He is worthy!!